Shock Totem #6 paperbacks!

Received copies of Shock  Totem #6 and will be sending the five winners their copies tomorrow! Thanks to everybody who spread the word about its release and thanks to everybody who entered! If you haven’t tried them yet go snag a copy from Shock Totem’s website or Amazon! They’re the best.

Shock Totem #6 Winners

I’ve drawn the five winners for the Shock Totem #6 giveaway! Thanks to all who spread the word and entered! I will let the winners know once I receive the copies I ordered, and when I have them in the mail on their way to recipients.

The winners are: Nancy, Amanda Lyons, Bill, Kelly Stiles, and Keith Chartier. I will email you to get your addresses within the next week! Thanks, all!

Also saw a blistering new review of WHEN WE JOIN JESUS IN HELL that’s on the Preliminary Ballot for the Bram Stoker Awards. Thanks to Gabino Iglesias. You can read the review here.

Shock Totem #6 Giveaway

Very excited that Shock Totem #6 will be out soon and I have just ordered 5 paperback copies to give away to some lucky buggers. 

All you’ll have to do is share this giveaway on FB, or Twitter, Google +, Goodreads, or wherever, and paste the link of where you shared it in the comments section down below.

Easy. I’ll run this Giveaway for two weeks and then pick the five winners.

Very excited about  sharing pages again with one of my heroes (Jack Ketchum). Plus Shock Totem is super fine and I love those guys. The interview I did for this was a blast. You can check out the table of contents here.

Thanks to anybody who spreads the word and enters!

On the Bram Stoker Award’s Preliminary Ballot

Pleased to see my novella WHEN WE JOIN JESUS IN HELL on the Bram Stoker Preliminary Ballot for Superior Achievement in the Long Fiction category. 

I think the Final Ballot comes out Feb. 23rd. I don’t know if I’ll make the cut but I’m going to have a beer anyway. 

I’m really happy with how this novella has been received. A big thanks to my pre-readers Shaun, Kevin, Chris, and Charlene. And to my publisher Shane Staley and his crew. And to all the wonderful readers who make “going there” worth it. I get a lot of help. 

Nice to see a bunch of Delirium titles on there as well, and a few of my lady buddies *Waving at Sandy DeLuca and Mercedes Yardley!* who I hope win in their categories.

Here’s a link to the Stoker Award page: *Click Me and be great in bed*

January’s Guest Author and an Upcoming Interview

I’ll be the guest author for the month of January at the Horror Aficionado’s group on Goodreads! They’ll be reading and discussing my heartbreaking novella WHEN WE JOIN JESUS IN HELL. I’m very excited to participate and look forward to answering a bunch of questions. Thanks to Jason and Tressa for the invite! Come join us! 

This novella has been turning heads. And it should. It’s wickedly subtle (not). 

Grab a copy for Christmas and join the party! 

If we’re not friends on Goodreads, send me an invite, punk. 

And to keep up with all the whirlwind that is my writing career sign up for my newsletter off to the right there. 

Oh, I’ll also have a deliciously decadent interview in Shock Totem #6 as well! I love that crew! Make sure you check it out. 

Not the Final Cover

Thanks for everybody’s support! Merry Christmas or whatever it is your celebrating!

My Favorite Reads in 2012

Here is the best of the best of what I’ve read during 2012. Thanks to the friends who recommended or sent me some of this stuff! Read ‘em!

Novels

Grendel by John Gardner

The Wreckage of Agathon by John Gardner

The Given Day by Dennis Lehane

Live by Night by Dennis Lehane

The Last Kind Words by Tom Piccirilli

The Burning Soul by John Connolly

The Neon Rain by James Lee Burke

Heaven’s Prisoners by James Lee Burke

Light in August by William Faulkner

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

Heart-shaped Box by Joe Hill

Only Child by Jack Ketchum

The Great and Secret Show by Clive Barker

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Death of the Mantis by Michael Stanley

So Cold the River by Michael Koryta

Novellas

The Night We Buried Road Dog by Jack Cady

By Reason of Darkness by Jack Cady

Reign of Blood by Sandy DeLuca

Wood by Robert Dunbar

Without Purpose Without Pity by Brian Hodge

The Rapist by Les Edgerton (forthcoming)

Collections

Falling Idols by Brian Hodge

Beautiful Sorrows by Mercedes Yardley

Non-Fiction

Becoming Faulkner by Philip Weinstein

The Faulkner-Cowley Files: Letters & Memories 1944-1962

Writing 21st Century Fiction by Donald Maass

Books to Die For by John Connolly and Declan Burke

And for my 2012 Year in Review… Go here! It blew 2011 to bits.

/strong

What I’m reading and other stuff

 Beautiful weather here which always lightens my mood. Working hard on my Crime novel THE WOLVERINE and think I can reach my goal of finishing the first draft by the end of the month then I can whisk it off to my readers Shaun, Kevin, Chris and Charlene. Very excited to hear their feedback! 

Lately I’ve read, or am reading: 

The second Detective Kubu novel THE SECOND DEATH OF GOODLUCK TINUBU by Michael Stanley (the writing team of Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip, whom I met at Bouchercon last month.) Love the series and can’t wait to finish this one and get my hands on the third novel which recently won the Barry Award for Best Paperback Original. Michael and Stanley are also working on some interview questions about writing as a team and the aspects of the Detective Kubu series. Very wonderful guys and I highly recommend giving the series a chance!

Also reading BEAUTIFUL SORROWS by Mercedes Yardley. It’s beautiful and heartbreaking. Along with Cate Gardner and A.C. Wise, she’s easily one of my favorite speculative writers. Beautiful Sorrows is like a soft kiss on the lips and a sledgehammer to the heart. You can grab a copy from Shock Totem! You can also read this interview with M about Beautiful Sorrows where she mentions me because we’re both so damn awesome. 

I also read the second Jack Reacher novel DIE TRYING by Lee Child. Met him at Bouchercon last month, too. These are such fun and fast reads. Really looking forward to #3. 

I gave my first blurb to Les Edgerton (another writer and very interesting man I met at Bouchercon) for his wicked novella THE RAPIST.  He’s tackled some very hard subject matter with a deft hand, filled it with textures and colors a lesser writer can only dream of. It’s not an easy read, but it’s well worth the time. Can’t wait until it comes out to see how people react to it. 

I had a great review from Steven Pattee at Horror Talk for WHEN WE JOIN JESUS IN HELL. He called it “Poetry for those who hate poetry…” and said, “Be prepared for an asskicking from this novella.” Really happy with all the feedback this story has received since it’s probably my favorite novella I’ve written so far. 

And it shouldn’t be too long before the second Red Piccirilli book WITHIN THIS GARDEN WEEPING is released digitally by Darkfuse. It takes what happened in Before Leonora Wakes a big step further into the dark heart of the matter that is Division. Artwork by Dani Serra. 

What has caught your interest lately? Read anything that has floored you?

Random Fun Stuff…

It’s been a crazy and exciting year so far, and it’s hard to believe that it’s almost over.

Right now I’m working on an interview for @HarperCollins author Michael Stanley (Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip) who I met at Bouchercon a month ago where they won the Barry Award for Best Paperback Original for the third novel in their series. They’re such lovely guys and the Detective Kubu series is so unique. I think the interview will be a lot of fun for everybody.

In the past couple days I’ve knocked out some serious story wordage in a new Thriller novel–The Wolverine. I expect I’ll finish the first draft by the end of the month if life doesn’t throw me too many curve balls. It’s about a dysfunctional family and a complex killer, a book that will explore the bonds of family, forgiveness, death, and maturity. This is another novel that I intend to sell under a pen name to keep separate from my Horror/Dark Fantasy work. It’s a lot of fun writing this book like it was to recently write The Lesser People. I see my career branching off, and like the idea of it, since most of my favorite work is more Literary Crime/Thrillers (think Dennis Lehane, John Connolly, Michael Koryta, Michael Connelly, Lee Child.) I’ll still write under my own name too, because I love Dark Fantasy in the vein of Clive Barker, Joe Hill, Brian Hodge, John Gardner, Jack Cady, Neil Gaiman, Robert Dunbar, Greg Gifune, and Peter Straub. So it’ll be a doubly fun adventure to do both genres under different names.

My latest novella (When We Join Jesus in Hell) from Darkfuse is doing well. If you’ve read it, share it with a friend and leave a review somewhere please.  I also picked up two new pre-readers yesterday and look forward to their feedback from a reader’s standpoint to balance my writing buddies that pre-read from a writerly/reader angle.

Right now I’m reading William Faulkner’s Snopes Trilogy, and Mercedes M. Yardley’s Beautiful Sorrows. Recently finished John Gardner’s Freddy’s book, which I enjoyed but Grendel (my favorite read so far this year) it is not. 

Some things I’ve found interesting around the web lately…

Shock Totem, my favorite Dark Fantasy magazine, shared a bunch of covers here.

Jane Friedman from Writer’s Digest shared this post on her blog: 2 Critical Factors for Successful Stories. It’s a simple way to stay focused and on track in your story.

I love old blues and thought this was a pretty neat movie: Lead Belly.

My hero Tom Piccirilli needs help. You can read about it on Brian Keene’s website.

The Next Big Thing

The lovely and gifted A.C. Wise tagged me for this whatchamajigger.  Thanks Alison! I normally avoid things like this because I’d rather be working on a project than talking about it but a ten minute break won’t hurt.

 Ten Interview Questions for The Next Big Thing: 

1. What is the working title of your book?

She Collects Grave Nectar

2. Where did the idea come from for the book?

It’s part of my massive Division Mythos, and is a pivotal moment in Michael Johnston’s life. The initial spark came from an image, or snapshot of a scene, too, the way most of my work does. It came from my own fears of going blind and stumbling into that gray area between life and death, that single nanosecond where both are one before life ceases and death begins and a new life is rebirthed.

3. What genre does your book fall under?

Supernatural Thriller. But it’s not for lazy readers. My work doesn’t go over well with those types. That said, if you’re well-read and have a lot of imagination you’ll dig it.

4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

For the main character, Michael Johnston, I’d pick Christian Bale if he was ten years younger because Mike Johnston is kinda like Batman. For the girl who collects grave nectar I’d pick the girl from The Lovely Bones movie because she’s kinda creepy in a good way, mostly due to her eyes.

5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

A Special Forces soldier with a hidden past meets an odd girl in a cemetery bordering our world and another and what she wants from him is soul-shattering.

6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I don’t know. What do I look like, a mind reader?

7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

A rough guess: three months of heavy drinking. I’m still working out all the pivotal moments.

8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Tom Piccirilli’s Shadow Season since my Special Forces protagonist is blinded and faces incredible entities as well as a profound mystery. Peter Straub’s novel Koko since there’s this complicated and creeping dread. And Stephen King’s Dark Tower series because it’s a mixture of many things both concrete and surreal.

9. Who or What inspired you to write this book?

Michael Johnston’s character arc runs through most of the thirteen Division Mythos books and this one was inspired by how little of his past he’ll reveal to other characters, even to his best friend in the series, John McDonnell (The narrator of the second Division trilogy).

10. What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

It has one zombie, one ghoul, and one vampire who walk into a bar full of politicians?

*** 

Include the link of who tagged you and this explanation for the people you have tagged.

The mighty A.C. Wise tagged me. Authors I’m tagging because I think they are amazing like A.C. Wise:

Cate Gardner.

Douglas E. Wright.

Mercedes Yardley.

Shaun Ryan.

Robert Dunbar.

Rules of The Next Big Thing

***Use this format for your post

***Answer the ten questions about your current WIP (Work In Progress)

***Tag five other writers/bloggers and add their links so we can hop over and meet them.

Be sure to line up your five people in advance.

Chapter 8 of Sonnelion and other gems

Red Piccirilli has known madness and magic. They’re in his blood and bound to his soul. But when his family moves to the town of Division, Pennsylvania, his father grows distant, his mother troubled, and a murderer roams the countryside.

He searches for answers while battling his own darkness, rage and despair, but corpses whisper secrets only the dead can discover.

Chapter 8 of THE COLLECTED SONGS OF SONNELION will go live today on my publisher’s website. Dig into it. Spread the word. Let me know what you think whether you read it here or here.

Also heard this great podcast interview where K. Allen Wood and Mercedes Yardley from Shock Totem magazine bring the entertainment. Give it a listen and thanks again to Ken for the mention!

And I interviewed Greg F. Gifune, one of the best Dark Fiction writers out there. Give it a read. Tons of insights for new and up-and-coming writers to add to their toolbox.

Also saw the cover spread for my Thunderstorm Books release IMMERSION which will be out next month in signed/limited hardcover, paperback, and digital. The sig sheets for the hardcover are on the way and should be there when I get home! Neat.

My local paper The Tuscola County Advertiser sent me a query about an interview, too. Excellent. I love interviews. Should be good fun. I’ll take some pics to post on here when I have a copy of it!